Growth Santana

I start training tomorrow here at the Boston Hostel. 

It took me about an hour to leave the parking garage after I got here. I sent text messages that needed to be sent (not really).

When I finally made it in here after 5pm, I walked up to the registration desk and introduced myself as part of the new Cape Cod staff to Johnathan who turned out to be the manager here. Almost immediately I was ushered into a managerial atmosphere where new vocab and power dynamics were at play. I scooted behind the desk to peek at the registration system then into the backroom, which was very coolly conditioned, to preview more of what I’ll see as I am officially introduced to all of the necessary systems and practices over this week. 

I pulled myself away as quickly as possible, headed to my basic but quirky  (that’s “hostel,” right?) room, and stared out at the busy Boston streets below. I eventually spent about an hour answering emails and moving along a civics project that’s just shaping up with brand new collaborators. Yay!

This morning on campus, I ran into a professor I have run into a little too much lately; he said, “now this is just getting weird.” At first it was four days in a row, well five, but I he didn’t see me on the fifth day. Then I saw him from afar a couple days later, I got up the nerve to ask him to weigh in on my project because of his particular expertise. When he I got his feedback and read it twice after a couple of days digestion, it was obvious to me that we need to collaborate, so I spent too much time over the weekend drafting an invitation to collaborate email that was still sitting in my “drafts” folder. I just spit it all out when I saw that he had parked next to me this morning, and now I’m not alone in my work anymore. Yay. Take that WPI guy whose complicated feelings got in the way of an much earlier version of this important project.    

This morning on campus, I coached a colleague who shared that he holds back in particular ways even though he has great confidence and success in a particular skill. I laughed with him about it before pushing, pressing, and poking at him. He seemed productively challenged, which is exactly the goal. (I wonder if he registered that I had coached him. I’m a stealth coach these days – just having efficient, deep conversations with people who let me show up for them.) 

Okay, bed time. Staring tomorrow, I’m a hostel manager. Holy shit. So cool!!